APPEAL TO THE TENDER-HEARTED.
By A. Smith
AT the creation of our world God did not design that the living creatures He formed should prey upon and devour each other. Such a condition of things, however, has been brought about by the entrance of sin. How proper, then, it seems that those who would be free from sin and return to the purity of Eden, from which the sinner was expelled, should adopt, so far as is possible in this world, the conditions of Edenic life. Aside from physiological reasons, there are mute appeals to the tenderness, pity, and love, especially of womankind, to discontinue the use of flesh meats entirely, as an article of food, unless under exceptional conditions. I am acquainted with a wealthy Roman Catholic lady who has abandoned the use of flesh meat, "for the reason," said she, "that every time I partook of it I thought I was sanctioning the bloody work of the butcher in preparing it for my table." And that is the truth. Yet there are delicate ladies who would faint from sick hearts at the sight of the butcher's ghastly work, and who would much more recoil from staining their own hands with the life-blood of an innocent victim of a perverted appetite; yet they freely devour the flesh of these creatures after it is prepared. I was once driving past a large pool of mud, when up jumped several hogs that I had mistaken for nearly buried logs, and, dripping with filth, they greeted me with a concert of grunts that a little girl said was "swearing." Well, I thought, with the filth scraped off and their foul flesh served on the table, how strange it is that delicate women will eat of it and call it "good"! At another time I was driving past a half-decayed carcass of a cow, when a small hog inside stuck his head out, covered with pink putrefaction, and grunted, as much as to say, "Good, good!" "Ah, young fellow," said I, "somebody will eat you by and by, and say, 'Good'!" There is another phase of this question that compels attention, and that is the custom of women in wearing for adornment the plumes of birds. Women are generally regarded as being tender-hearted, and yet they sanction the killing of the beautiful songsters of the meadow and woodland by this vain custom. One of the blessings of the immortal state is assured in the promise, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the Lord." Isa. 65:25. Why not have a little foretaste of heaven here, and share it with God's beautiful birds and animals? It would make us more tender-hearted and heavenly-minded. A. SMITH.
Grandville, Mich.